hi :) It's Penny here and as usual I'm here to talk about some bookish things,
specifically what I wanted to do today is talk about the last thousand pages of
YA fantasy that I've read which in this case is three books. And then for each of
those I will give you a quick rundown of what I liked about them, what I didn't
like about them, and whether I would recommend them, so I'm gonna start with
the two that I do recommend and then I'll get into the one that I would
probably only recommend two very specific people. Firstly let's talk about
the Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman because this book is getting a
lot of hype on booktube at the moment. This story is set in a town where there
is this horrible monster imprisoned in this fog called the Gray that regularly
kills people within the town. Also within this town there are four founding
families who work to protect the town from this monster and we follow a bunch
of different teenagers from these founding families. The two that get the
most page time is Violet, who hasn't lived in the town knows nothing about
this horrible monster or any of the founding families. Unfortunately her
sister has just died in a car crash and so her family has moved back to this
town where of course she discovers all this craziness that's going on and her
part to play in it. We also follow this guy named Justin, who unfortunately
hasn't gained his powers - did I even mentioned that the founding families
have powers? - they all have powers. And the powers were one of the parts that I
really liked although I think it's common for me to say I would have liked
more of the fantastical element. So more of the powers and a little bit more
explanation about how they work. But this is the first book in a serious so I
expect that we will get more of that as the series continues. I also like that
each of the four main characters were very different and they each brought a
really different perspective or element to the story. Sometimes I feel like in YA
fantasy the characters aren't as fleshed out as they could have been and while
these were still relatively simple, they still felt quite real and and I did
really enjoy the characters and their relationships with each other.
For things that I didn't like, I really recommend that you
read this in physical form because I listened to the audiobook and personally I
found the narrator really frustrating. She read things in such a harsh,
matter-of-fact way that I didn't feel matched the tone of the story at all and
I had to work really hard to enjoy the story as I felt it should be.
Whereas ideally a narrator will add to the story rather than getting in the way
of your enjoyment of it. Another thing that I would like to call out is there
is an animal death in this story and I didn't think it was necessary. I saw
somebody else give a warning about it and they thought that the outcome was cool
enough that it made up for it but we didn't even get a talking cat so
personally I don't think it was worth it or at all necessary. So overall I would
say this is a really fun YA fantasy with lots of cool powers and a scary
monster. It's nothing too deep but then it doesn't really try to be. So in the
end I gave this four stars and I think that if you like YA fantasy,
especially ones that are a little bit fun, have a bit of teen angst and
interesting relationship dynamics, then I would definitely recommend this one for
you. So then the next YA fantasy that I read was The Scorpio Races by Maggie
Stiefvater. So this is set on an island near Ireland. My accent probably means
that that wasn't very clear at all but I'll put some words - an island near
Ireland. Anyway on this island at a certain time of year horses start to come
out of the sea. They're very wild and dangerous horses
that are still kind of part of the sea but sometimes people are able to trap
them and keep them. And then also at this time every year they have a race where
people ride these horses and it's a very dangerous race. Almost every year some
people die. We follow two main characters. The first is a guy named Sean whose
father died during one of these races. He works as like a horse person? That's not
a proper profession! Like a stablehand? Horse trainer?
That's what he does but he doesn't particularly like working for the man he
works for and I guess being obligated to do certain things for him so he wants
to win the race in when so that he can buy his freedom and also the freedom of this
horse that he really loves. We also follow another girl named Puck,
I forget what her real name is but everyone calls her Puck. She's very wild
but her parents also died, I'm not sure, I don't remember whether it was involved
in the races. So her and her two brothers live alone in this house one of her
brothers has decided that he is going to go to the mainland. She's very upset
about it. They're also at risk of losing the house, they're not in a very good financial
situation so she wants to win the race. Now as always Maggie Stiefvater's writing
is really beautiful and lyrical. I thought it was so wonderful and atmospheric. And
this is another one where I listened to the audiobook but in this case I thought
the narration was really amazing. It really added to the story because the
narrators, both the man who does Sean and the woman who does Puck, do these
beautiful Irish accents and I just thought the audiobook made the story
so much more authentic. I guess I would also say that because the writing style
is so beautiful and lyrical, it can seem quite slow. That is a criticism I have
heard people say about this book so I definitely in this case would recommend
the audiobook because even when it's slower you can just bump up the speed a
little bit or do something else so that your mind isn't so frustrated with the
slow pace and you can just take your time to appreciate the beautiful
atmospheric writing. It is true that if you're someone who likes really fast
paced plot books then this might not be for you. That said I do normally like a
good fast paced plot but for this book I was willing to do without it because the
characters were just so wonderful. They felt very real and they're also very
strong people, especially Puck. She is such a strong character and I really
enjoyed her character a lot and I thought it contrasted really well with
Sean's character. He was much more laid-back but strong in a different way.
So if you like really character best fantasy and the idea of
these horses that come out of the sea and they're very dark and dangerous in a
way that really represents the whole of island life in a way that really
represents what life is like on the island if that sounds like something
you'd be interested in then I would definitely recommend this book to you. I
personally gave it four stars because it is true that it didn't change my life
but it was a very enjoyable read. Okay so let's talk about the last YA fantasy
that I read recently and that is Soundless by Richelle Mead. This is the
only one that I read in physical form and unfortunately it ended up being only
a two stars. So this story follows this young girl who lives in this village
where unfortunately they are stuck at the top of a mountain. It's very
difficult for them to get down. There's avalanches all the time.
So what they do to survive is they do have a mine and they have this zipline
down to the main village at the bottom of the mountain and they send minerals
and the things that they mine down and in return they get food sent back up.
Another interesting feature about this village is that the people in the
village cannot hear so they all use sign language and also our main character is
an artist and every day they write up these big posters? I guess they're not
posters but they put up these big things that say the day's news so that
everybody can see it and unfortunately what's starting to happen now is that
some people are also starting to lose their sight and this is a big problem.
They're starting to not get as much out of the mines because they don't have as
many able people and in return the village down below at the bottom of the
mountain isn't sending up as much food so this has put them in a very difficult
situation. So I thought it was a really interesting idea that we had this
village where no one can hear and they're starting to lose their sight. In this
story as well at some point one of the characters stats to regain her hearing.
It was really interesting hearing her experience of sound for the first time. I
thought that bit was really well done and I also really liked the romance.
It's kind of a slow build romance but it felt quite realistic. So for most of
this book it was kind of not amazing but not terrible. I thought
maybe I'd give it a three stars but then right at the end this fantastical
element was introduced that we weren't really prepared for. I thought it seemed
just very convenient and I didn't really believe it and so that bumped it down to
a 2 star. From that point I just felt much less generous about this book and I
started picking holes in the logic. So one of the things that's said right in the
beginning is that in this village everyone has one of three jobs. So there
are artists who write up the news, there's the miners who do mining, and
there's the suppliers who deal with the stuff that's coming up up the mountain
and making sure people have what they need. But very soon we also learn that
there are servants who serve the artists who live kind of in a higher class and
have better standards of living. Also then somebody dies and suddenly there's
a priest coming out to look after the dear body and I was like well what
happened to these three jobs huh?! Seems like there's a few others! So I did think
the world-building was definitely lacking. Also the writing was just not
that great. For those of you who this annoys there were two instances where
she let go of a breath she didn't realize she was holding. I was also quite
frustrated because sometimes she would be having thoughts during a piece of
action and she would say 'there's no time to ponder that right now' which to me is
just the author really awkwardly getting from the train of thoughts back into the
action and I found it quite jarring and it pulled me out of the story. So in the
end I feel like the story had potential but unfortunately it just didn't achieve
that potential so I only as I said I only gave it two stars. It was a bit of a
disappointment. I do think maybe you might like this book if you're
especially looking for a story where people use sign language to communicate
or if you're very new to fantasy but then I'd be worried that you would think
this is what all fantasy is like and it's really not. It's much better than
this. But still if you're new to fantasy the lack of world building
might not frustrate you as much as it would for some other fantasy readers. So
those are all the books that I'm going to talk about today. Do let me know if
you have read any of these books. Do you agree with what I had to say or do you
have any other thoughts? I would love to discuss those books with you down in the
comments! Otherwise if you haven't read them do you think they are
something that you would be interested in? Were my reviews and recommendations
helpful? It would be great if they were! Otherwise I guess that's all I have for
you today. Thank you so much for watching. I hope that you're having a really
wonderful day and I will see you next time :)